tell you I’d be working on the place?”
“It can wait. I’ll only be here a short while.”
“Some of it can’t wait.” Damn, she was bringing out his stubborn streak. “Look, I don’t bite, but I may have to break your rental agreement if we don’t come to some kind of terms about the things I need to do here.”
The door opened a little wider and he was astonished to see the kind of blond, blue-eyed beauty that should be in the movies. And she looked nervous. Why the heck should she look nervous? Nobody in Conard County looked nervous about someone knocking on the door.
He almost sighed. Instead, he fought for some courtesy. “It’s important,” he said. “I didn’t expect the place to get rented in its current condition, and I’m not sure Ben gave you all the warnings.”
At last she nodded, opened the door all the way, and let him step in. He smothered a wince as his hip reminded him that not all was well south of the border, especially after a week in the saddle.
“The place is good enough for me,” she said tentatively. “I’ll only be here a short time.”
“Yeah, but I’d like you to leave on your feet, not on a stretcher.”
At that he was relieved to see the faintest of smiles lift the corners of her perfect mouth. Beauty came in all varieties, but this woman had the kind that usually implied heaps of plastic surgery. Exactly the kind that didn’t appeal a whole lot to him. Usually.
“The place isn’t exactly a death trap,” he said, forcing himself to pay attention to business and not to another area south of the border that was choosing a bad time to sit up and take notice. “But there’s some rotten flooring I need to warn you about, and a couple of iffy electrical circuits. And the stove doesn’t work right, but I have a replacement coming soon.”
“Okay.”
He held out his hand. “Hank Jackson.”
“Kelly Scanlon.” Her handshake was firm. Okay, so she hadn’t come by that perfect figure by unnatural means. She must work out.
“Nice to meet you,” he managed to say as if he meant it, although he was thinking of at least a half-dozen ways he’d like to give Ben a hard time.
“If the house is so bad, why are you renting it?” she asked.
“It wasn’t my intention. Ben’s been after me to list it with him. I thought I made it clear he wasn’t to rent it until I’d finished the most important work.”
Her smile widened a shade. “I guess he doesn’t listen well?”
“Apparently not. Either that, or he’s even more desperate than I thought. Even with the semiconductor plant that moved in a couple of years ago, I think beggars around here make more than real estate agents. Did he even show you the fuse box?”
“No.”
“Hell.” He sighed, then limped past her through the small living room to the kitchen. Like many kitchens of its era, it had more room than convenience. Space enough for a big table, but few cabinets, an old freestanding sink, and just an itty-bitty patch of counter. The stove stood all by itself near one wall, the refrigerator a few feet away.
“Someday,” he remarked, “this is going to be a nice kitchen. But right now…” He shook his head. “Most of it looks like an afterthought.”
“I don’t need much.”
“Maybe not,” he allowed. “One person can get by.” He walked over to the mudroom door and stepped out into the unheated, glassed-in area. “Here’s the fuse box.”
He opened the metal casing. “There are three circuits here that I removed the fuses from. Resist any temptation to put a fuse in them until I get an electrician out here. If you get desperate to use these circuits, I have extension cords I can lend you so you can plug into safe sockets.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
He glanced over and found her standing right at his shoulder. And damn, she smelled good, too. Faintly like roses and honey. Or maybe after a week of smelling horses and cattle, anything else would smell like ambrosia.
He tore his gaze from her—for some reason his eyes kept wanting to stare—and pointed to the floor to the right side of the back door. “Over there the joists are rotting underneath. You can go out the door safely, but I’d advise against stepping over there. I can’t guarantee it will hold you.”
“Okay.” She sounded agreeable enough.
He looked at her again. “Did Ben tell you this?”
She bit her lip, then gave a tiny shake of her head.
He sighed. “Oh, I am going to have some words with him. All right, the windows out here are slated to be replaced. I have the new ones in my garage, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. You’ll notice the windows in the rest of the house are all new, but I still need to do some caulking and leveling, okay? So you’ll have me outside from time to time banging around.”
“Okay.”
That seemed to be her only word. He led the way back through the kitchen to the rear of the house, where there were two bedrooms. One was completely empty, the other held an old bedstead. He just hadn’t gotten around to removing it, or some of the other furniture the last owners had left behind. Not much, but a minimum for someone who had none.
But when he looked at the bedstead and mattress, he winced, and this time it wasn’t from physical pain. “Are you going to sleep on that?” he asked.
“It’s there.”
“Ah, crap, lady, that thing is…”
“A bed,” she said firmly. “I can get a mattress pad to cover the worst of it. At least it’s not the floor.”
This time when he looked at her he saw past the initial impression of too beautiful to something that showed more depth and determination. Eyes that appeared older than her appearance would indicate. There was a story there, he thought. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know it, either. She’d made it clear she was a transient, and he knew the kinds of stories that came with eyes like that.
“The stuff that’s here,” he said by way of explanation, “was left by the previous owners. I just haven’t gotten around to getting rid of it. If you want it out of here…”
She interrupted. “No, really. I can use the stuff that’s here. I don’t need or want to replace it.”
“Your choice,” he said after a moment. “Watch it in the empty bedroom, though. More rotten floors. I got rid of the termites, but I just haven’t had time yet to replace all the wood.”
“Not a problem.”
He scanned the rooms again, and never had the place looked shabbier. It was an old house to begin with, and the last owners hadn’t invested much, if anything, in keeping it up. They’d been getting on in years, and probably hadn’t even noticed most of the deterioration. The walls everywhere were hideous, covered in dying wallpaper, water spots
